Love You For Life… Part 2

Lousie and Ant had a fabulous city wedding which was beautifully shot by Amy Murrell from Especially Amy. Let’s jump straight back in…

Especially For You.

Our photographer was Amy Murrell from Especially Amy. Along with booking the venues, choosing our photographer was the first thing we did. We spent HOURS going through blogs and looking at photographer’s websites and spoke to a few before coming across a post by Amy on Rock My Wedding. We got in touch and after a chat and gushing over the beautiful weddings on her site knew we’d found who we were looking for. Amy was so lovely and had lots of brilliant advice that helped us with aspects of the whole wedding, not just the photography. We also spoke to her about the possibility of a videographer – something we had been considering but were worried about the extra cost. Amy recommended we got in touch with the lovely Dan at From the Hip Video to discuss the options and after meeting him and seeing his work we knew how important having a video of the day would come to be – we were sold!

Both Amy and Dan were wonderful on the day, really lovely to have around as well as being experts in their respective crafts. We couldn’t be more pleased with the results, Amy captured so many special moments and beautiful shots of our friends and family, the photos really tell the story of our day. Our video is also amazing; we’ve watched it a few times now and laughed and cried our way through each time! I can’t recommend getting a video of your wedding more, it is so, so worth the extra money. It gives you a perspective that, as bride and groom, you don’t get to see on the day and, in the whirlwind of it all, helps to let the memories live on in your mind.

Little Pieces Of Heaven.

Our lovely friend, Debbie, offered to make our cake and we were delighted! We’d seen her clever handy work at a birthday party just after we got engaged, when she made an airplane inspired cake. Ant was very keen for our cake to be in the shape of something that would remind us of a key event in our relationship – at one point we were talking about a mini bus in memory of the holiday when we first got together! In the end we left it to Debbie’s creative genius to surprise us and the result was perfect, a classic two-tiered shape, completely covered in intricate sugar roses that she made by hand. It was so lovely and personal that it was made specially for us by our friend and both the Victoria sponge and the fruit layers were like little pieces of heaven!

Classic And Contemporary.

It was really important to us that the music during the ceremony was beautiful and created an exciting atmosphere. We found the Crystal Palace String Quartet online and, after speaking to Chris there, knew they would be perfect.

As everyone arrived at the ceremony they played a mix of classical, including Mozart: Divertimento in D, and a few contemporary songs, like All you need is love by the Beetles. I walked down the aisle with my Dad to Kissing you by Des’ree. I cannot tell you how beautiful this is on strings; when we were waiting for our cue to walk down the aisle and the quartet began playing it, my sisters and I almost lost it! Thankfully, we managed to keep it together (and our makeup intact).

The quartet then played during the first reception drinks on the terrace straight after the ceremony and while we had photos. When we arrived at the second venue we switched to an ipod with lots of golden oldies playing in the background while everyone chatted and caught up with each other.

We both had quite a specific idea of what we wanted in the evening to make sure the dance floor was full all night and knew our friend Luke was the man for the job. He often DJs informally at our friend’s parties and always has everyone on their feet and throwing some shapes! We weren’t disappointed, I won’t list all the gems but there may have been more than a little bit of old school Garage that went down very well, even with the Aunties and Uncles!

A Lovely Moment.

Our first dance was a subject of much debate throughout the entire planning stage. Ant is very into his R&B and Love you for life, Jodeci has been a favourite for years; he put it on a mix tape he made for me right at the beginning of our relationship. However, I was worried it was a tad too cheesy. In the end, after realising that trying to choose a random song, no matter how beautiful, and make it ‘our song’ before the wedding was slightly silly, I relented and Love you for life it was. It was definitely very cheesy, but that really didn’t matter, we both knew all the words and despite my reservations it was a lovely moment.

Oodles Of Pretty.

I was in a quandary over favours for a very long time. You would think that working in the Weddings department for notonthehighstreet.com would make this decision easy. I encounter oodles of wedding pretty every day, which was both brilliant and excruciating – the choice was overwhelming! In the end, we decided to go homemade to keep it as personal as possible. We got engaged in Cornwall, when I took Ant to show him where I spent every summer growing up. To give a little nod to this my sister, Amy (with some help from Ant) made fudge to pop inside the pockets of the origami hearts that were the place names. It was the sweetest thing watching them both standing over a huge pot on the oven at my parent’s house making it, they even made little stickers with A&A Fudge written on to go on the wrappers!

A Touch Of Beauty.

Our ceremony venue, One Whitehall Place, was beautiful on its own but we put our own stamp on it with big lilac-green hydrangea heads and ivy at the ends of the rows and an enormous pedestal arrangement at the front. We also had little tea lights all over the room, which really made it feel special.

The Union, the beautiful Georgian townhouse where we held our reception, has a very unique style of it’s own which we complemented with some of our own decorations. Our favourites were the beautiful directional signs from Delightful Living, which we used to guide everyone to key areas around the venue, some pretty votives from Garden Trading, London bus lights from Carry Me Home and lovely wooden frames from Moa, which we had received from our wedding list, that we used for the table names.

Anne at Delightful Living also made us our very own ‘Photo Boothe’ sign (our surname is Boothe), which we hung above a table with lots of props, disposable cameras and our guest book, asking guests to take a picture, write a message and we would then stick their photo next to their message later. It is now hanging on the wall in our living room, above some of the best photos from our homemade photo booth; it’s such a lovely keepsake after the wedding.

All In One Place.

It was so special to have as many of our favourite people as was possible in one place for the day. I’m not sure we’ll ever achieve that again and seeing everyone enjoy all the little bits that we had spent so many months planning was lovely. Having little aspects that our friends and family did themselves, like the cake, the music and the favours, gave everything a very personal feel. On the day we felt very lucky to have such great people in our lives.

The ceremony was my favourite part of the day, we had a civil ceremony and, in lieu of a hymn, we all sang Stand by me, by Ben E. King. Standing at the front, looking back at all our guests singing their hearts out was an incredible moment. Our friend Katie, read her own version of Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen, which was so personal and also, in parts, very funny, it really created such a happy atmosphere.

The Best Moment Of My Life.

Standing across from Ant saying our vows, in front of our friends and family was like nothing else. I’m usually so shy about anything that puts me in front of a group of people (I have a morbid phobia of audience participation), but I felt so happy that my nerves vanished, it was honestly the best moment of my life. When we got in our black cab to the reception after the ceremony, while everyone else boarded an old London Routemaster, we just looked at each other a little in disbelief at how amazing it all was.

A lot of brides say this, but truly the best advice is to lap it all up on the day. Take as many moments as you can to take it all in, remember the smiles on people’s faces and the laughing, it does all go so, so fast.

Also, don’t let any post-wedding blues get to you – remember that the best is to come! Now that it’s all over, I love being married so much and it’s great being able to spend time together that isn’t dominated by either, decisions over what colour the ribbon should be, or guilt if we’re not doing something wedding-related. In his speech, Ant borrowed a quote from Dr Seuss: “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” When I think back to our wedding day, it feels dream-like, but the reality of marriage and living each day with my husband (love saying that) is the best bit!

To finish this amazing wedding report off in a style it truly deserves, we have a little treat for you. A video shot by a brand new Love Lust member Shoot From The Hip.

Oh how I wish I had been a guest at this wedding! It looks so perfectly styled – so Londony (if that makes sense) and so personal. Louise looks so unbelieveably happy in all the photos and I love so many of the shots of the guests. Um…how good is that one 3rd from the bottom of the guy with the bow tie laughing? Awesome!

I think a personal version of Sunscreen is the best idea of a reading I’ve ever heard – so fantastic!

And, Louise, I know exactly what you mean about the guilt of using your spare time to do something non-wedding related! It was like when I used to avoid doing my homework, that icky I-should-be-doing-something-else feeling!

I think this is possibly one of my favourite ever weddings on the blog. So, so much pretty! The photographs are just beautiful – some amazing ones of the guests, you really get a sense of what a happy day it was. And what an unbelievably gorgeous couple! The quote from Ant’s wedding speech….sob! Perfect x

This is lovely, the pictures really capture the magic of the day. It was the most beautiful and magical wedding full of love and attention to detail. I was so honoured to be part of it and making the cake was a real pleasure as louise and ant are such special friends to me. X

It was a gem of a wedding to film. It had so many amazing visual details but actually Louise and Ant, their friends and family made the film come alive. It was jam packed with emotion as everyone was totally into the day and it showed. A genuine pleasure to have been involved. x